I'll be the first to admit this is not an outta-the-park home run. Where laptops are concerned, I tend to prefer at least a one-year warranty; this refurb is covered by HP for just 90 days.

What's more, the 15.6-inch screen has a native resolution of just 1,366 by 768 pixels, which is equivalent to 720p, not 1080p. So some of that Blu-ray horsepower is wasted, at least if you're planning to watch movies on the go.

On the other hand, 1080p is overkill for a screen of this size--heck, it's overkill on a 37-inch HDTV--so that's not such a big deal. Thankfully, the Pavilion does have an HDMI output, so you can connect the system to your HDTV and enjoy full 1080p Blu-ray goodness.

The system is powered by a 2GHz AMD Phenom II P860 triple-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive. It weighs about 5.5 pounds.

Relative to other laptops I've seen lately, you're paying about $100 extra for the better processor, Blu-ray drive, and larger-than-average hard drive. Worth it? Depends on your computing needs, of course. If this doesn't quite fit the bill, or you want a non-refurbished model, stick around: there are always better deals just around the corner. (Of course, with that mindset you can end up waiting forever...)